Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport this morning opened 4,400 new parking spaces, which should help ease the shortages that sometimes plague the airport during its busiest weekends.
The Cypress garage offers four levels of parking atop the new five-story rental car center that opened in January.
Parking will cost $1 a half hour with a maximum of $12 for a whole day.
The airport already has about 7,700 garage spaces and 3,600 ''remote spots'' -- spaces farther out where passengers catch a shuttle to the terminal, airport spokesman Steve Belleme said.
The garage is connected to Terminal 1.
A moving sidewalk on the second floor takes travelers from the garage to the terminal, Belleme said.
Cypress is recommended for people traveling on America West, Frontier, JetBlue, Sky Service, Southwest, Sun Country, Trans Meridian and West Jet.
The entire project, garage and rental car center, cost $247 million.
Drivers will enter the new garage from the adjacent Hibiscus garage.
If Hibiscus is full, drivers will cross a bridge from the top level of the Hibiscus garage into Cypress.
Later, a separate ramp will open just for the Cypress garage.
